filling in the blanks

After spending 18 months exploring off-grid and visiting many off-the-beaten-path gems, we still get excited for every opportunity to revisit some of Costa Rica’s more well-known and popular destinations, such as Monteverde, Arenal, and Tortuguero. We first visited these places nearly two decades ago, and they played a key role in helping us fall in love with this beautiful country. It’s gratifying to see that despite the tourism explosion in the intervening years, they — unlike some other well-traveled destinations — have lost none of their charm.

Thanks to the Volcanic Ultimate Frisbee Tournament, in which D participated for the second year in a row this May, we got to spend another week in Arenal, revisiting some of our favorite places and filling in the blanks by exploring some sites we had not previously visited. We split our stay between the Arenal Observatory, where we stayed with D’s parents the first time they visited us in Costa Rica, and a hotel with on-site hot springs in La Fortuna proper, where we’ve stayed several times previously — including with D’s parents the second time they visited.

Last year, while D was at the tournament, S took the kids on a lava flow hike. Munchkin, in particular, enjoyed scrambling over old lava rocks in the shadow of the Arenal Volcano and longed to do the hike with D this year. Instead, we wound up exploring a different lava repository, taking in the very scenic “Arenal 1968” trail, which ascends through a forest, takes visitors through the 1968 lava flow, and meanders through another patch of forest and around a lake before ending at a cafe with spectacular views of the volcano. Despite the searing heat, both kids made it through the entire 3.5-mile loop trail without much complaint.

For D, the return to Arenal provided a prime birding opportunity, the Arenal Observatory holding the distinction for being Costa Rica’s top birding hotspot — a remarkable badge of honor in a country that derives a good chunk of its tourist revenue from birding tourism. With the spring migration in the rearview, the action at the observatory was a bit muted compared to our initial visit a couple of Decembers ago. The fruit feeders, teeming with birds the last time we visited, were largely deserted.

Even with the limited action, D still found the visit eminently worthwhile. At the observatory lodge, he tracked down several lifers that had eluded him on our first visit — the song wren, the nightingale wren, and the golden-bellied flycatcher among them. On the final day of the tournament, D returned to the Bogarin Trail, where we went in search of black-and-white owls last year. This time, D was searching for crakes, which he saw reported with regularity in the weeks leading up to our visit. He was rewarded with stellar views of the white-throated crake, which he had seen only once previously and only for a split-second at that, as well as the uniform crake, another lifer.

D’s favorite new addition to his life list was the white-fronted nunbird — a gregarious bird with patchy distribution, which D had sought in vain at several sites where it had been reported. Before the tournament, D had spent a morning birding in Braulio Carrillo with a couple of local Ultimate friends who happen to be avid birders. One of them suggested D check out the Arenal Peninsula trail, a section of the Arenal National Park we had not previously visited. It proved to be the most fruitful of the birding sites D explored on this visit to Arenal. The nunbirds, a pair of which D managed to coax out of the deep woods, were the cherry on top of a splendid visit that also included a number of other noteworthy species.

Pictured from top to bottom: common pauraque; white-throated crake; boat-billed heron (juvenile); russet-naped woodrail; golden-bellied flycatcher; white-fronted nunbird.